Candidate selection method for handwriting input

ABSTRACT

A method for handwriting input includes recognizing a first character inputted by handwriting; providing a plurality of recognition results each with a code based on the recognition of the first character; recognizing a second character inputted by handwriting; and determining the first character based on the recognition of the second character. A handwriting input system for carrying out the method is also provided.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a handwriting input method, and moreparticularly, to a candidate selection method for handwriting input.

As an input method, handwriting input has been widely used in a varietyof information terminal devices. In handwriting input, handwrittenstrokes are recognized as a character or a command by an algorithm ofpattern recognition. Due to the variations in drawing the strokes andthe imperfectness of the recognition capability, it can be difficult forhandwriting software to correctly recognize the handwritten inputinformation all the time. For this reason, when displaying therecognized character, the handwriting software typically providesseveral candidates for user's selection. When selection of the characteris performed in a handwriting manner, a typical method is to designate adedicated key or place the candidates in a designated area that can beclick selected such that the user can make a selection by pressing thekey or clicking the candidates. In these methods, however, the user isrequired to accurately locate the key and the click selection area and,therefore, both the user's attention and the handwriting pen may moveaway from a handwriting area. After the selection, the user needs tomove his/her attention and the handwriting pen back to the handwritingarea for handwriting of further information. During the handwritingprocess, the user may have to move his/her attention and handwriting penback-and-forth between the handwriting area and the click selection areaor the selection key, which can be very inconvenience and significantlylower the handwriting input speed. What is needed, therefore, is acandidate selection method for handwriting input which can overcome theproblem existed in the current handwriting input method.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention provide a candidate selectionmethod for handwriting input which allows the user to more efficientlyselect the correct character from a plurality of candidates.

In one embodiment, the selection method for handwriting input is carriedout as follows.

step a: After a character is inputted by handwriting, handwritingsoftware recognizes the handwritten character and provides a pluralityof recognition results each with a code.

step b: If one recognition result which is inputted into an input windowas default is correct, further information may be inputted byhandwriting. If the recognition result which is inputted as default isincorrect, the code of the correct recognition results is directlyinputted by handwriting.

step c: The handwriting software then recognizes the inputted stroke. Ifthe recognized stroke is the same as the code of one of the recognitionresults generated in step a, which means that the user selects that oneof the recognition results, the recognition result inputted in the inputwindow as default is substituted with that one of the recognitionresults and the method returns to step a.

In the method described above, the handwriting software recognizes thestroke after step b. If the recognized stroke is different from thecodes of any recognition results generated in step a, the handwritingsoftware determines the inputted stroke to be a new character input and,therefore, repeats step a.

In various embodiments of the method, the codes of the recognitionresults in step a may be numbers such as 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . , letters suchas A, B, C, D . . . , or any combination of the above codes such as A1,A2, A3, A4 . . . .

In one embodiment, the handwriting software may further provide an audiooutput function that, when outputting a recognition result, outputs anaudio message corresponding to the outputted recognition result foruser's reference.

In a further embodiment, the handwriting software provides a phrasememory function that enables the user to select memorized phrases later.

Benefits of the method described above include that, among others, theuser's attention and the handwriting pen are always kept in thehandwriting area during the handwriting process. As such, selection ofthe candidates can be achieved without interrupting the handwriting. Inaddition, whether an input is a selection of candidates or a newinformation input is determined automatically by the handwritingsoftware without the user's determination, thus achieving a rathersmooth handwriting input and greatly enhancing the efficiency of thehandwriting software.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flow chart illustrating the operation of one embodiment ofthe present method.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present method is carried out by a handwriting input system whichincludes, but not limited to, a software interaction model, a strokeinput module, a stroke recognition module, a results transmit module, acommand execute module, and peripherals of the handwriting input system.The software interaction model is used to support various types ofhandwriting software. The stroke input module allows a user to input ahandwritten character and receives the handwritten character. The strokerecognition module is used to recognize the handwritten characterinputted by the user. The results transmit module is used to transmitthe recognized results to the user. The command execute module is usedto execute selection and input command. The peripherals include ahandwriting pen, a handwriting panel, and a font database for the inputsystem.

Before the embodiment is described further, it is to be noted that, thecharacter used in the disclosure means any symbol. Thus, a characterincludes, but not limited to, a letter, a number, a Chinese character, acombination of the above, or the like. While the embodiment is describedin connection with handwriting input of Chinese characters, the methodmay also find utility in handwriting input of characters of other typesor countries.

A flow chart of one embodiment of the present method will be describedas follows with reference to FIG. 1. As the method starts, a user inputsone or more handwritten characters (step 100), i.e., the user draws oneor more characters on a handwriting area. Assuming that the user inputsa English word “TYPE”, the stroke recognition module of the handwritingsoftware recognizes the strokes drawn by the user and obtains arecognition result “TVDE”, which is inputted into an input window asdefault, and also obtains a plurality of initial recognition resultcandidates “TVPE, TYDE, JVDE, TYPE, JYDE, JVPE”. Each of the candidatesis numbered with a number by the software and is displayed to the userby the result transmit module (step 200). As such, the initialrecognition result candidates received by the user are displayed as amessage: “1. TVPE 2. TYDE 3. JVDE 4. TYPE 5. JYDE 6. JVPE”. Upon viewingthe message, the user determines that the default input recognitionresult “TVDE” is incorrect (step 300). The user then views othercandidates and determines that the candidate “TYPE” with number 4 is thecorrect result. Thus, the user inputs the number 4 of the correctcandidate by handwriting in order to select the correct candidate (step400). Once number 4 had been inputted, the stroke recognition modulerecognizes the input stroke as “4”, and the present recognition result“4” is compared with the numbers of the initial recognition results(step 500). By this comparison, the software determines that the presentrecognition result “4” is the same as the number “4” of the candidate“TYPE” among the initial recognition results (step 600), and therebydetermines that the user selects the correct candidate, i.e., the word“TYPE”. Therefore, the command execute module of the handwritingsoftware substitutes the default input word “TVDE” with the word “TYPE”(step 700). However, after displaying the initial recognition results tothe user, if the handwriting software recognizes and determines that thesubsequently inputted stroke is different from any one of the numbers ofthe initial recognition results, the subsequently inputted stroke willbe treated as a new character input.

In the exemplary embodiment, each of the recognition result candidateshas a number for user's selection. In another embodiment, eachrecognition result candidate has another type of code for user'sselection, such as, a letter, or a combination of a letter and a number.

In one embodiment, the handwriting software may include an audio moduleprogrammed to output an audio message corresponding to the handwrittencharacters to the user, thereby facilitating those visually impairedpersons confirming their input or prompting of the correct pronunciationfor the handwritten characters to those who are learning pronunciation.

In one embodiment, the present invention further provides a phrasememory function. For example, when a user has continuously inputted thecharacters “James Smith”, the handwriting software will automaticallymemorize this phrase. If the user correctly inputs the character “James”later, the handwriting software will automatically retrieve and displaythe phrase “James Smith” as one of the result candidates for user'sselection. If the subsequently inputted characters correspond to anotherphrase “James Kaler”, the handwriting software will again memorize thephrase “James Kaler”. Later, if the user correctly inputs the character“James”, the handwriting software will automatically retrieve anddisplay both the phrase “James Kaler” and the phrase “James Smith” asresults candidates for user's selection.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variations can be made to the structure of the presentinvention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention.In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present inventioncover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fallwithin the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.

1. A method for handwriting input adapted for a handwriting inputsystem, the handwriting input system comprising a stroke input module, astroke recognition module, an input window, a result transmit module anda command execute module, the method comprising: the stroke input modulereceiving a handwriting input of one or more first inputted charactersinputted within the input window; the stroke recognition modulerecognizing the one or more first inputted characters and obtaining aplurality of recognition results corresponding to the first inputtedcharacters, wherein recognition results from the plurality ofrecognition results comprise a default recognition result and aplurality of candidate recognition results; assigning an identificationcode correspondingly to each of the recognition results, and the resulttransmit module displaying each of the recognition results together withthe corresponding identification code; the stroke recognition modulerecognizing one or more second inputted characters inputted within theinput window inputted by handwriting; and the command execute moduledetermining the one or more first characters based on the recognition ofthe one or more second characters by comparing the one or more secondinputted characters with each of the codes.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the step of comparing the one or more second inputted characterswith each of the codes comprises: determining whether or not one of thecodes is identified to be the one or more second inputted characters. 3.The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining the one or morefirst characters based on the recognition of the one or more secondcharacters further comprises: if one of the codes is identified to bethe one or more second inputted characters, the result transmit moduledisplays the recognition result corresponding to the identified code. 4.The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining the one or morefirst characters based on the recognition of the one or more secondcharacters further comprises: if none of the codes is identified to bethe one or more second inputted characters, the one or more secondcharacters are recognized by the stroke recognition module as a newcharacter input to be displayed by the result transmit module.
 5. Themethod of claim 4, further comprising substituting the defaultrecognition result in the input window with the one of the recognitionresults upon determining the one of the recognition results is the oneor more first characters.
 6. The method in accordance with claim 1,wherein the codes correspondingly and respectively displayed with therecognition results are numbers, letters or a combination of numbers andletters.
 7. A handwriting input system comprising: a stroke input moduleconfigured to receive drawing of one or more strokes of a firstcharacter and a subsequent second character; a stroke recognition moduleconfigured to recognize the first character based on one or morereceived strokes of the first character and recognize the secondcharacter based on one or more received strokes of the second character;a result transmit module configured to provide a plurality ofrecognition results each with a corresponding identification code; adisplay area displaying each of recognition results from the pluralityof recognition results correspondingly with the corresponding codethereof so as to allow a user to identify a correspondence therebetween;and a command execute module configured to identify whether or not thesecond character is one of the codes respectively corresponding to therecognition results for determining the first character based on arecognition result of the second character.
 8. The handwriting inputsystem of claim 7, wherein the plurality of recognition resultscomprises one default recognition result and a plurality of otherrecognition result candidates.
 9. The handwriting input system of claim8, wherein the command execute module is configured to determine thatthe default recognition result is the first character if the secondcharacter is recognized as a new character input that is different fromany of the codes of the recognition results.
 10. The handwriting inputsystem of claim 9, wherein if the second character is recognized as oneof the codes corresponding to one of the recognition results, the one ofthe recognition results is determined to be displayed as the firstcharacter.
 11. The handwriting input system of claim 7, wherein the codeof the recognition result is selected from the group consisting of anumber, a letter or a combination of the above.